Khan of Kalat slams government
From The Nation | November 12, 2011 | Khan of Kalat slams government
By Bari Baloch
QUETTA - Self-exiled Baloch leader Khan of Kalat Mir Suleman Daud Khan has urged the Balochs to forge unity.
"Muslims are celebrating Eidul Azha while the Pakistani government is playing with the life of innocent Balochs in the province by delivering decomposed bodies after abducting them from their homes and torturing them in torture cells," he said while talking to a group of journalists by telephone from London on Friday.
Daud said he appealed to the Balochs across the globe to gather under the "Balochi flag" as they were close to achieving their objective.
He expressed his sympathies with the relatives of victims who, according to him, had been picked up by intelligence agencies and killed.
"This is a message for the Baloch population to not give up the struggle. The government has failed to attain its objectives as it could not crush the Baloch's struggle despite the worst kind of brutality," he said, adding that the zest among the Baloch increased with every decomposed body that fell.
"Although the Balochs are presently weak and fighting with a powerful enemy, they will not remain weak and will soon achieve the desired goal," he said, adding that thousands of Balochs, including their leaders like Nawab Akbar Bugti, Balach Marri, Ghulam Muhammad, Lala Munir and Sher Muhammad, had been martyred since 2000.
He said those who thought that they would remain safe by being silent or inactive in their courtyards were mistaken as the Pakistani government had decided to wipe out the Balochs.
"History makes it evident: the Balochs have long been facing aggression, but have never bowed," he added. He said that leaders like him living in exile were not leading luxurious lives. They were living in miserable conditions, struggling to seek the world's attention over Balochs' woes and the cruelties of the Pakistani government against them. He said that to a great extent, Baloch leaders had succeeded in making the world realise that their movement was not related to terrorism, but a struggle for their rights.
Addressing some Baloch leaders who consider assemblies and parliament as the solution to the Balochs' problem, he said that parliament had never served the Balochs.
"Elections and parliament will keep Baloch slaves within the present arrangement instead of resolving their problems," he remarked, adding that there were also some leaders under the guise of Balochiat (Baloch sympathisers) who were working as the establishment's agents and would not be forgiven.
About the sectarian violence in Balochistan, he expressed his sympathy with the Shia community and said the Balochs had no sectarian divisions among them, rather they respected all religious creeds. He said, "There are some terrorists who have come from neighbouring Punjab province and are trying to fan hatred."
